As Modi flies to Europe, 49 ex-officers hold his politics responsible for indifference towards Kathua, Unnao rapes

By A Representative
Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew for an official visit to United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden, 49 retired civil servants belonging to administrative, foreign, forest and police services, in one of the strongest condemnations of the Modi government, have held him directly responsible for the “terrifying state of affairs” following the "unspeakable horror of the Kathua and the Unnao incidents."
The officers who have signed the open letter include former topcop Julio Ribeiro, former Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, bureaucrat-turned-activists Harsh Mander and Aruna Roy, former Government of India economic affairs secretary EAS Sarma, former ambassadors to United Kingdom and Japan Nareshwar Dayal and Aftab Seth.
Asking him to reach out to the families of the Kathua and Unnao rape victims to “seek their forgiveness”, and brushing aside his condemnation of the two incidents before he flew to Europe, they say, Modi's "belated remonstrations and promises to bring justice" the culprits have come after "the communal cauldron is forever kept boiling by forces nested within the Sangh parivar."
The letter says, "Instead of owning up and making reparations, you had chosen to remain silent, breaking your silence only when public outrage both in India and internationally reached a point when you could no longer ignore it."
"And even then, while you have condemned the act and expressed a sense of shame, you have not condemned the communal pathology behind the act nor shown the resolve to change the social, political and administrative conditions under which such communal hate is bred", the letter tells him.
A senior Gujarat cadre IAS officer, who qualified it as "by far the strongest condemnation by retired civil servants so far . Fat lot any attention will be paid", regretted to Counterview that none of those who signed the letter belongs to the state cadre. Notably, Gujarat officers have been direct fitness to Modi as chief minister during the 2002 communal riots and his role.
Recalling that they came together last year to express our concern at the decline in the secular, democratic, and liberal values enshrined in our constitution, the former officers say, "We had hoped that, as someone sworn to upholding the Constitution, the government that you head and the party to which you belong would wake up to this alarming decline, take the lead in stemming the rot."

The Kathua rape victim

Pointing out that "this hope has been destroyed", the ex-officers say, "Instead, the unspeakable horror of the Kathua and the Unnao incidents shows that the government has failed in performing the most basic of the responsibilities given to it by the people."
"The bestiality and the barbarity involved in the rape and murder of an eight year old child shows the depths of depravity that we have sunk into", the letter says, adding, "In post-independence India, this is our darkest hour and we find the response of our government, the leaders of our political parties inadequate and feeble."
"Our sense of shame is all the more acute because our younger colleagues who are still in service, especially those working in the districts and are required by law to care for and protect the weak and the vulnerable, also seem to have failed in their duty", the letter regrets.
Pointing out that their outrage is over "the agenda of division and hate" that his party and its "innumerable, often untraceable offshoots that spring up from time to time, have insidiously introduced into the grammar of our politics", the letter tells Modi, "It is that which provides the social sanction and legitimacy for the incidents in Kathua and Unnao."
The letter says, "In Kathua in Jammu, it is the culture of majoritarian belligerence and aggression promoted by the Sangh parivar which emboldened rabid communal elements to pursue their perverse agenda. They knew that their behaviour would be endorsed by the politically powerful and those who have made their careers by polarising Hindus and Muslims across a sectarian divide."
"In Unnao in UP", the ex-officers say, "It is the reliance on the worst kinds of patriarchal feudal mafia dons to capture votes and political power that gives such persons the freedom to rape and murder and extort as a way of asserting their own personal power."
According to them, "Even more reprehensible than such abuse of power, it is the response of the state government in hounding the victim of rape and her family instead of the alleged perpetrator that shows how perverted governance practices have become. That the government of UP finally acted only when it was compelled to do so by the high court shows the hypocrisy and half-heartedness of its intent."
It underlines, "In both cases, Prime Minister, it is your party which is in power. Given your supremacy within the party and the centralised control you and your party president exercise, you, more than anyone else, have to be held responsible for this terrifying state of affairs."

Comments

Covishield controversy: How India ignored a warning voice during the pandemic

Dr Amitav Banerjee, MD * It is a matter of pride for us that a person of Indian origin, presently Director of National Institute of Health, USA, is poised to take over one of the most powerful roles in public health. Professor Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian origin physician and a health economist, from Stanford University, USA, will be assuming the appointment of acting head of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA. Bhattacharya would be leading two apex institutions in the field of public health which not only shape American health policies but act as bellwether globally.

Growth without justice: The politics of wealth and the economics of hunger

By Vikas Meshram* In modern history, few periods have displayed such a grotesque and contradictory picture of wealth as the present. On one side, a handful of individuals accumulate in a single year more wealth than the annual income of entire nations. On the other, nearly every fourth person in the world goes to bed hungry or half-fed.

Thali, COVID and academic credibility: All about the 2020 'pseudoscientific' Galgotias paper

By Jag Jivan The first page image of the paper "Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis" published in the Journal of Molecular Pharmaceuticals and Regulatory Affairs , Vol. 2, Issue 2 (2020), has gone viral on social media in the wake of the controversy surrounding a Chinese robot presented by the Galgotias University as its original product at the just-concluded AI summit in Delhi . The resurfacing of the 2020 publication, authored by Dharmendra Kumar , Galgotias University, has reignited debate over academic standards and scientific credibility.

The 'glass cliff' at Galgotias: How a university’s AI crisis became a gendered blame game

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan* “She was not aware of the technical origins of the product and in her enthusiasm of being on camera, gave factually incorrect information.” These were the words used in the official press release by Galgotias University following the controversy at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi. The statement came across as defensive, petty, and deeply insensitive.

'Serious violation of international law': US pressure on Mexico to stop oil shipments to Cuba

By Vijay Prashad In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council—which permits sanctions under strict conditions—the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

When grief becomes grace: Kerala's quiet revolution in organ donation

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Kerala is an important model for understanding India's diversity precisely because the religious and cultural plurality it has witnessed over centuries brought together traditions and good practices from across the world. Kerala had India's first communist government, was the first state where a duly elected government was dismissed, and remains the first state to achieve near-total literacy. It is also a land where Christianity and Islam took root before they spread to Europe and other parts of the world. Kerala has deep historic rationalist and secular traditions.

When a lake becomes real estate: The mismanagement of Hyderabad’s waterbodies

By Dr Mansee Bal Bhargava* Misunderstood, misinterpreted and misguided governance and management of urban lakes in India —illustrated here through Hyderabad —demands urgent attention from Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the political establishment, the judiciary, the builder–developer lobby, and most importantly, the citizens of Hyderabad. Fundamental misconceptions about urban lakes have shaped policies and practices that systematically misuse, abuse and ultimately erase them—often in the name of urban development.

Activists warn of gendered impact of VB-GRAMG Act, seek return to MGNREGA framework

By A Representative The All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA), along with the Agrarian Alliance and Workers’ Forum of the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), has written to President Droupadi Murmu urging her to call upon Parliament to repeal the newly enacted Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 (VB-GRAMG Act) and restore and strengthen the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

Stray dogs, an epsilon (ϵ) problem: Of child labour, and the art of misplaced priorities

By Bhaskaran Raman The Greek alphabet ϵ (epsilon) is used in maths and science to denote a quantity which is not zero, but extremely small *** Since the Supreme Court's interim order on the issue of stray dogs came out on 07 Nov 2025, there have been a range of opinion pieces speaking for the voiceless. Most of them take the stance that there is a "problem" with stray dogs, but that we need a humane solution. I agree with this broadly, but I think we need new terminology to talk about this.

Search This Blog